Dance of Demons

Chapter 17

At last! How many tens of thousands of centuries had he been kept in bondage? Many. Far, far too many! While his true self had been bound in slumber, his mind drugged and powerless through the force of arcane dweomers, all that he had worked for and accomplished had been undone!

No. That wasn't exact. His puling enemies had been inept. The Lords of Light had attempted to destroy his work, but they had merely succeeded in making Evil factious — as weak as they were, those noble masters of Weal. Tharizdun smiled a smile of pure malice. Weaklings of any sort would be expunged from the cosmos soon.

The child-Tharizdun stood expectantly before him now. The boy was a creation of the Lords of Light, a place to house that part of himself that they could not submerge in their magical toils.

"Father!" the boy-Tharizdun shouted. "They escape, they escape!" he cried, fairly dancing in his excitement and fury. "Those three wear the rings!"

The true Master of Malevolence was sitting bolt upright in the stony cavity that had been his crypt for the centuries. Tharizdun was not yet fully himself.

There was a weakness evident inside, and only one answer at hand.

"Come here, my child," he said to boy. The youthful little one obeyed reluctantly, his face still a twisted mask of impotent fury. "Show me how to stop them," he commanded. That order was ignored, and a heartbeat later Tharizdun seized the child and dragged him into the sarcophagus.

"You are unnatural," the Darkest of Abominations growled as the boy started to resist. "No! I am Tharizdun! Let me-" he screamed, seeing the red lust and awful fate that the being purposed for him. His last sentence was cut short by the teeth of his unnatural sire. Long, vampiric fangs closed on the jugular of the kicking child.

"Ahhh. That is better," Tharizdun said with deep satisfaction as he drained the life from what had been his only consciousness for eons. Tossing aside the limp and lifeless body, Tharizdun sprang from the black crypt as lightly as a dancer. "You dared to presume!" the terrible being said, looking down at the pale and bloodless form that was a replica of himself — or would have been, had Tharizdun ever been a child. "Just because you housed a modicum of me, little jackal, that is not the same as being me! But you still have a use, for I am not yet fully satisfied."

Then the ghastly thing grabbed up the corpse and proceeded to enjoy a cannibal feast. Tharizdun's mouth grew broad, jaws lengthened, and teeth grew to suit his desire. With snarl and slobber, he dined on flesh and bone. In but a few minutes nothing but the boy's skull remained.

Then the newly arisen emperor of the malign closed his burning eyes, seeking the ones who had freed him at last. There was no gratitude. In fact, Tharizdun would have felt none had the three been dedicated servants of his cause. All too well did Tharizdun know the prophecy of one who might resist his supreme reign over the cosmos, and just as well did the Master of Evil know that the man with gray eyes was that adversary.

"I see you," Tharizdun said. In his mind were pictures of the whole of the castle, the land around, even more beyond. He concentrated only on the immediate surroundings, though, for he had first to eliminate all traces of the champion and the heroes who dared accompany him. Only then would it be time to bring to bear his might and subjugate all.

"I see you!" and as the thought arose in Tharizdun's brain it was transmitted to the minds of the three rash humans below. "You two will stay there at the portal," the archfiend communicated in his chilling thought, "and as soon as your little would-be champion has been dealt with I will come for you." The message was meant to dishearten, frighten, and disturb his foes. Tharizdun could have attempted to accomplish all through sheer mental assaults alone, but there was something compelling him to seek out the one named Gord and master him.

"You can never rule the multiverse," came the sharp words, "Tharizdun! Not until you can best me!"

With a snap that was clear to his antagonist, Tharizdun shut his mind. The force of the challenge was much greater than the dark being had imagined it could be. The opponent was a worthy one. That was not at all to Tharizdun's liking. How could one small half-human be more powerful than any of the deities he had faced and defeated long ago? Then only a great coalition of his enemies had been successful in overthrowing Tharizdun.

"I do not underestimate the adversary," he said aloud softly. Arrogance and disdain were natural to the ultimate Evildoer, but now he would temper his pride and self-assurance. Testing the foe came first, discovery of patterns, weaknesses, and strengths too. Afterward, Tharizdun would strike, crush, and annihilate! He turned and stepped down, landing on the floor of the lower chamber with a dull thudding noise. Striding heavily, so that each step was like the distant thunder of doom, the Master of Malevolence went down to meet his awaiting opponent Gord was surprised when he finally saw the true Tharizdun. The being appeared as would a normal man. Tharizdun was only moderately tall, perhaps six and one-half feet. Hardly the stature of a colossal demon or devil! He was fair-complected, goldenhaired, almost beautiful in a godlike way. The boy had indeed been a true reflection of the mature evil.

"Your sudden maturation is noteworthy," Gord said easily to Tharizdun as the being came closer. Gord would dispel any notion of being made uneasy by the deliberately dread-laden tread used in coming to where Gord waited. "Years of growth in but minutes!"

Tharizdun laughed. It was so purely evil a sound that it made horripilations on the scalps of those who heard it. The dark fiend regretted that he was unable to observe its effect properly, for the small man was coifed and helmeted, sword drawn and ready. He brought his left hand from behind his back, sending something bowling along the metal-sheathed floor toward the booted feet of the champion of Balance. "Quite mistaken, Gord," Tharizdun said with assurance. "These is the proof of your error."

The thing bounced off the metal-shod toes of his boots. Hearing Tharizdun speak his name didn't bother Gord in the least. What the dark being sent rolling across the floor was another matter. It was the boy's skull, with part of its flesh still attached, so that fair hair and torn flesh competed for attention as it tumbled, and as it came it left a goiy trail of spatters. "Gods!" the young champion expostulated. "You-"

"I did," Tharizdun said, punctuating the pride of acknowledgment of his foulness with laugh and phantasm. There, between him and the young man who would oppose him, the Ultlmate Netherbeing recreated exactly what he had done with the boy. "I'll have that skull back from you," the vile creature added, "so as to make the merging of it complete. I thought you would find some amusement, however, in the foretaste of your own fate, the fate of your comrades too."

The partially eaten head came wobbling around and stopped so that its empty eye sockets seemed fixed upon him. Gord was appalled, but the horror served to reinforce his determination to resist the foul archfiend to the end. "You shall not pass," Gord said with an iron-hard voice. "You are lord of nothing save this tower, maggot, unless you best me!"

"Maggot? Very descriptive … of yourself!" Tharizdun said with unhurried air. "I see you have a blade in hand which my first foes devised. how did you ever manage to reassemble it? I am amazed," the abomination said with amusement evident in his tone. "I quaffed its baneful dweomers and then scattered the bright, sending the sword into separate halves so that it could never again be whole."

"What was is of no matter. It is here now, and whole, ready to send your rotten soul into an eternity from which there will be no reawakening!"

"How very forceful! I fairly tremble at the prospect of engaging such a mighty weapon," Tharizdun mocked, his handsome features wreathed in a vile smirk "still, what choice have I?"

Why, none at all when facing such a stout and puissant foe." He seemed unable to contain himself any longer. The chamber resounded to peals of his hideous loathsome laughter as Tharizdun gave vent to his derision.

Gord took the opportunity to strike, leaping in and thrusting at the being's chest, meaning to pierce Tharizdun's heart. The lunge was met in an instant by the ringing impact of a broad-headed axe. The great weapon had flashed into existence at the moment of his lunge, and Gord saw by the way Tharizdun spun the double-bitted thing that the evil being was a master with the axe. "Fast, maggot, and clever," Gord called as he withdrew quickly from the engagement. At a position Just before the entrance to Tharizdun's prison he stopped. The axe would be hampered by the lintel above the portal, by the narrowness of it too. "Come on to where I stand, then, for you must exit, mustn't you?"

It was annoying. He had thought that perhaps he could finish the contest quickly. The one whom Balance had groomed for champion was too able for such, Tharizdun reminded himself; he should have expected that. It was also irritating that the small fellow understood so well his need to get free of the metal confines of the cell. Until Tharizdun was totally free of it, able to leech strength from the spheres of Evil, it was impossible for him to bring his total powers into play. Such a one-to-one test was not at all to Tharizdun's liking. It was a demand he could not escape.

"You seek unfair advantage," he called to his adversary, "But I also have a two-part weapon!"

That was said to distract Gord for the instant necessary for Tharizdun to alter the form of his battleaxe. The thing shimmered and dIvided. From the fission came two smaller weapons, each axe bearing but a single head, with each haft appropriately shortened as well. The relatively compressed space of the doorway would pose no great problems for such tools of slaughter. Tharizdun advanced with assurance.

Gord could not so dIvide Courflamme. The light was needed to reinforce the dark when its blade had to confront the greatest wickedness ever known. For a heartbeat he regretted giving Leda his dagger, wishing he had it to serve as main gauche against the two small axes Tharizdun now spun and played as he advanced. Realizing that advantage had been turned to disadvantage, Gord rushed, using Courflamme's length and speed to make a deadly web before him. He had to regain a position at or just inside the entry, or else the battle was lost, whether or not Tharizdun actually slew him. The sword's tip showered forth scintillations of white fire, and from that light Tharizdun drew back for an instant "We have balance again," Gord rasped, standing fast now in the portal.

"Ah, but you again seek unfair advantage," the malign being snarled. "You used those coruscations of empyreal matter to bund me. but I now counter with my own forces, for you have allowed such!"

That was true. Gord had involuntarily willed the light to ensure that he regained his blocking position. Now he regretted the increasing scope of their combat By drawing force from elsewhere, Gord had opened an opposite channel for his foe. Tharizdun would not neglect to utilize that. "You will need all the help you can summon, maggot!" Then he regretted that as well.

From the two axes streamed things resembling blind, bloated slugs. They plopped upon the unyielding floor unharmed, then crawled in masses of disgusting, purplish-hued gropings, sucker-mouths working hungrily as they came. "You speak to me of maggot! Now see what I bring you."

Although not certain what one of the things would do if it found its way inside his armor, Gord was sure that agony and poison were the least of the effects. Each pass of one of the dark axes showered another score of the grubs, and a wave of the thumb-sized things would soon lap the floor at his feet. Yet he could not retreat from them, and to use Courflamme would be to invite destruction from the two whirling axes. If he used yet further force from outside this plane, then the master of wickedness could do the same, perhaps even establish a conduit that would flood Gord in its evil strength. He had to do something quickly, or else there would be no chance. It came to him in a flash of inspiration. "The ring!"

"What did you say?" Tharizdun demanded, hissing in hatred.

"I have the ring!" As he shouted that full into the vile creature's face, Gord thought of the blue band and its bright stone. From the sapphire came a glow, an orb of brightness that grew and solidified into a phoenix. The iridescent brightness of the creature's plumage was that of pure fire, and as would any bird, the blazing phoenix set upon the slugs. "They serve to make its hues more beautiful, no?" he called to the scowling Tharizdun, moving into an attacking stance as he spoke.

The phoenix was growing, its fire becoming incandescent as it devoured the things of Evil so quickly that Tharizdun knew there was no chance of bringing in enough for the grublike monstrosities to get past its darting beak of flame. Besides, the accursed object that Gord utilized might well send forth another of the birds if need be. He had been annoyed before, but now Tharizdun's breast was burning with rage as hot as the fiery phoenix before him. His adversary had evoked power that the dark deity could not counter, whose presence gave him no equal or greater advantage.

"Whelp! You think me bested thus? It is idiocy!" He turned and moved so quickly as to seem a blur. Then, from a comfortable seat on the stairway opposite the door, Tharizdun mocked, "I must escape these chambers, it is true; but I have been in durance herein for centuries, youngling. You are mortal — or mostly so. I will wait here. you will grow weary, impatient. You will fall into sleep, or else you will come into the room to face me. either way, I can wait, for the result is foregone in its conclusion." The twin axes again shimmered and became one. "The great war axe will dIvide you as it does itself."

Part of what he heard was irrefutable, but Gord considered another tack to which his foe seemed to be oblivious. "Gellor! Leda! Use your minds to send me the force held within your rings." he urged telepathically.

Within a moment there was a surge of energy flowing into his brain, through his body. Into the sapphire ring on his hand. "Let the space here reflect the compassion in your heart, Tharizdun," Gord called out. The dark stones and dismal atmosphere indicated to the young champion that his adversary had made the fortress his own, but not so the pure metal of adamantite that caged the archfiend. That stuff was of Light, and the power of Evil could not conquer its essence.

Tharizdun heard the sounds of dripping and hissing. The noise was that of metal running molten, falling and flowing as it did so. He cast a quick glance up over his shoulder to the chamber above. It was unaffected. Then Tharizdun used his power to see into the higher places of the spire. His prison crypt was covered in glowing adamantite, stuff molten and dropping from the conical roof peak gathering and sliding toward the curved staircase. "Mere stuff as that won't harm me," Tharizdun laughed.

"That is so, maggot," Gord called back not moving from his defense of the only exit from the place. "It will shrink the size of your realm, though," he added, now mocking the mocker.

It was so! The metal seemed to be sentient. It pooled, gathered, then flowed down. A portion remained to seal the way to the turret's roof while the remainder oozed down toward the next opening in the floor. As it sealed that space, the adamantite from the ceiling and wall heated, ran, moved to Join the rest, ready to flow further downward soon again. It could not harm him by its furnacelike heat, nor could the metal compress or suffocate Tharizdun. All it could accomplish was to make the chamber he now rested in into a cubicle, a virtual coffin. So constricted, the small man who championed all Tharizdun would destroy could skewer the Master of Evil as if he were a trussed bullock awaiting the butcher.

He had meant to be cautious, careful, not underestimate his adversary. That resolve had been broken, because the greatest of Evil was what he was, and arrogance, cruelty, hatefulness, and vanity were integral to his mind and makeup. Tharizdun had erred in assuming he could bypass an immediate confrontation, that he could overcome the foe easily, that he could somehow find and use his old powers. The little display with the boy's skull had been a stupid bit of braggadocio. Instead of horrifying the man to a point where Tharizdun could crush him easily, the ploy had backfired and made Gord more resolute. Now the last portion of his essence was still in the head, awaiting consumption before Tharizdun could employ his full faculties. The gray-eyed man with the deadly sword stood over the gory skull and seemed to understand its importance.

As bad was the fiasco of the three rings. The adversary obviously understood the edge those things allowed him here. If only he had eaten the child completely! Better still, had the little puppet only managed to get the tokens of Light away from the three, then served himself up to restore Tharizdun's vigor to its full! Neither case was, so what else could be done? He tried rage, but the fury was insufficient to bum away the fear. Wholly evil, totally malign, Tharizdun was all that comprises wickedness, and cowardice is as surely of that dark woe as cruelty and the rest Fear began to pervade Tharizdun, because he had no courage to face a foe who was his equal.

"I'll hack you into bits!" the beautifully evil one shrieked, his whole being torn by dread and hate. Tharizdun sprang erect and began to advance.

Somehow he hoped to force his way out of the confining chamber, to escape the adamantite's restraints, fly into the multiverse. Once loose, it would be only a matter of gathering power, gaining strength. Even without the immediate consumption of the last of his vital essence locked fast in the skull, Tharizdun would be so mighty that no champion could stand against him. The fear came from the evident probability of his not being able to break free without melee. The sword was too potent a weapon, and should it strike home, he. Tharizdun, might actually suffer the fate of mortals and lesser beings. The latter thought added the hate to the dread that consumed him.

For some inexplicable reason Gord moved into the chamber to meet Tharizdun's charge. Possibly it was meant to prevent a sudden lunge to freedom. Sword and battleaxe met with a clash that echoed off the metal walls, while sparks of magical generation sizzled and snapped through the air where the two weapons collided. Despite his opponent' advantages of height, weight, and reach, Gord turned the stroke of the axe with Courflamme. The heavy, doubleheaded weapon caromed upward from the parrying blow Gord delivered. The longsword was far faster in recovery than the massive war axe. Its edge sliced along the naked flesh of Tharizdun's torso, slid rather than rebounded. "The first!" Gord exclaimed.

"Aaagh!" was the sound that shot from the archfiend's cruel mouth. The dweomer of Courflamme's blade was insufficient to actually cut his flesh, but the contact hurt. A fiery burning puckered the flesh of his side, and Tharizdun's perfectlooking skin grew swollen and lIvid where the edge had struck.

The pain and the fury caused Tharizdun to lose control of his form, and he metamorphosed into a monstrous parody of man, a fiend with a visage more hideous than any demon's, eyes more baleful than those of Asmodeus himself. He brought the battleaxe around and down, striking the small man a glancing blow that knocked him away to the left. That allowed Tharizdun to have the two-bladed weapon at the ready before Gord could thrust or cut a second time in the exchange.

"You are well named. Master of Malevolence," Gord panted, feet planted, Courflamme weaving in a delicate pattern before the archfiend's eyes. "You wield a wicked stroke with that axe of yours, and your ugliness is beyond description. What will my next touch do, cause you to change into a dungpile?" It was not merely a taunt, a ploy to disconcert his adversary. Despite the pierced armor and small cut that the blade of Tharizdun's axe had inflicted, he saw how telling his attack had been. Power surged through Gord's whole body, and with it came a calm confidence. Above came the hiss and splatter of the molten adamantite as it slowly oozed downward. He could engage and best Tharizdun here long enough for the stuff to have its way. Then, even though the great axe could become two smaller ones, Gord knew his longsword would pierce the evil flesh of his adversary and end the threat of Tharizdun forever.

The same realization came upon Tharizdun that very moment. "I am not ready!" the being of Evil bawled as if calling upon the multiverse for succor. It was a protest at being not fully in his wicked power and glory, and it was a cry too against his own imminent end. "Darkness! Come!"

A deep, monotonous voice spoke. "No evil comes to your aid, being of utmost bane. Will you accept the help I offer?"

"Yes, yes! Whomever or whatever you may he, I eagerly accept your aid!"

"There is the price of sharing. .

"To the fullness of your deserved honor shall I grant that — " and then Tharizdun had to break off in order to fight again, for Gord had closed and attacked hotly when the new presence in the chamber became evident.

With a rapid and deadly series of cuts and thrusts Gord fought. The new ally that came to Tharizdun was one known to Gord, for it was none other than that entity that called itself Lord of Entropy. Even if the thing could lend no direct support to the black foe, the young champion was certain that the entity could somehow unbalance the situation, allow Tharizdun a chance of victory. Unlike the malign deity, Gord knew that the only real chance he had to stand against his terrible opponent was here and now. He understood all too well that if the Ultimate Evil ever roamed free, then it would be as if he were a mouse attempting to fight a tlger.

He took wild chances then, trusting to his speed, reflexes, and skill to save him from death. The great battleaxe did find its mark again and again, but no telling blow was struck in return, Gord plied Courflamme, and the once-fair skin of Tharizdun became a mottled patchwork of welts and little cuts that oozed gelatlnous blood. "Now, master of maggots, let's hear more of your whining!" he gasped as a particularly heavy overhand stroke hacked down upon Tharizdun's shoulder.

Reeling back sending forth a string of ineffable curses at the gray-eyed champion, Tharizdun tried to gain enough distance to allow his huge axe better play. On an intuitive urge, the archfiend suddenly dropped to one knee and lashed out with his right arm, arcing the battleaxe parallel to the floor at knee height. The spiked top of it struck Gord's armored legs, and the man fell rolling. Tharizdun Jumped upright again, and in the interval when his adversary was regaining his own feet, the being of Evil again caused his weapon to become two.

"Where is the assistance?" He shouted the words even as he leaped toward the champion. At close quarters, Tharizdun knew full well his small hatchets would have great effect, but Gord's agility would soon enough put the two at sword's length again. It was only a momentary advantage. Tharizdun had to have some outside agency lend him help!

Both wildly swung axes missed their mark, one fended off by Courflamme's quillons, the other going wide of Gord's left shoulder. Even as that happened, Gord's years of training as swordsman and acrobat proved their worth. He slipped under the taller opponent's guard, sprang away to Tharizdun's rear, and then cut sideways with a two-handed scything blow that had the force of a pirouette added to it. This time the blade actually drew a spurt of blood as its edge cut a thin line on the evil being's nearly impervious flesh. "You may be the greatest of all netherbeings, maggot; but you are a poor fighter!" Gord panted as he again circled to gain a position that both prevented Tharizdun from attaining the door and kept the deity of Evil at a distance.

He was right Tharizdun knew that. Great, powerful, the darkest force of wickedness known — that was true, but such did not speak to Tharizdun's indIvidual prowess with ordinary weapons. In his prime, the dark being could destroy minds, shatter spirits, and utilize dweomers as no other could. Were he whole and filled with eldritch powers drawn from the nadir of the cosmos, Tharizdun could have bested the champion of Balance by drawing upon arcane forces to counterbalance Gord's skill and the power of Courflamme. At this moment, however, the difference in relative capacities in melee was beginning to tell. As Gord struck and moved and spoke, the ancient malevolence could manage no reply. The dark being was wondering only when the voice that had promised assistance would deliver the succor. That Gord was aware of the entity and seemed unconcerned troubled Tharizdun. Was this to be the finish? Impossible! After all the time, centuries of sleep filled with dreams of return and red revenge, nightmares of powerlessness, and the sweet foretaste of reawakening power, he could not be stopped here on the threshold of opportunity! Because the small man kept a distance, the darkest of evils again transformed his weapon into the great war axe.

"If you desire a fencing lesson, mortal fool, you shall have one!" Tharizdun finally said, crying with boldness he did not feel. The ploy was simply to give a bit more time for Lord Entropy to lend his aid.

Unknown to Gord, the formless thing was indeed at work on behalf of the Ultimate One of Darkness. Entropy had immediately transferred itself to the chamber above where the dweomers of Light were at work on the metal that imprisoned Tharizdun. The entity settled itself carefully, and for a minute or two all of the multiverse save the small portion of nowhen and nowhere in which Tharizdun's prison existed was relieved of the burden of Entropy's weight. The entity condensed all of itself there, and on a single small area too. No substance, physical, mental, spiritual, is infinite in its form and existence. Where Entropy rested, and the adamantite felt the effect that ten billion years would bring. Suddenly the blue metal became nothing. There was a hole in the cage; an escape route now existed. "Come up to me, Tharizdun," Lord Entropy said telepathically.

Gord heard that message. He redoubled his efforts, but the massive axe kept him back far enough to enable the greatest one of Evil to back his way to the stairway. "Coward!" the young champion shouted as Tharizdun bounded up the steps.

"Fool!" Tharizdun shouted back. Then he saw the opening with its amorphous darkness that was the entity and leaped through to the freedom beyond.

I will return soon, Gord the Cursed, to hunt you down and finish you. yours will be the slowest and most painful of deaths imaginable! do watt for me. .

It was a mental message, of course, that last. It came as Tharizdun went winging across the spheres. Not certain whether his foe would hear or not, Gord responded staunchly. "Be sure to do that, maggot, for I'll expect a better fight when next we meet."